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After everything they’d done to Torin and me, a vicious part of me wanted to leave this place in ruins. I wanted to rip the tree free of the stones that burdened her, to bury the queen in a pile of rubble.
But I had to exercise restraint. My work wasn’t done here until I had Torin’s body.
I slipped back into the stairwell, leaning my head against the cool stones. Shielded in here, I tuned into the castle’s vibrations, and my heart started to race at the rhythmic marching that pounded through the stone. The oncoming footfalls of armored guards rushing closer, steel-clad bodies clanging through the halls. My breath caught. If I hesitated too long, I’d be dead.
I knelt once more and brushed my fingertips over the rough bark, letting my mind slip into the tree’s world, feeling the life it drew from the rays of the setting sun. With a rush of magic, sap surged through its veins, dripping off its leaves. I drew the boughs closer to me through the southern wall, and they smashed through the nearby tower windows, shattering glass.
When I peered out into the hallway, Mab’s soldiers were scrambling, drawing their swords as sap and glass rained down. What did they think they were going to do with their swords, kill the tree? With a curl of my lip, I summoned the tree branches to twine around the soldiers, yanking them out through the shattered windows. Their screams filled the air, along with the coppery scent of blood.
The hall was nearly clear now, but footfalls pounded up the stairs from below, coming right for me. I held my breath, and the tree breathed for me.
With my fingertips touching the floor, I compelled the tree to exhale until the air filled with pure oxygen—enough to make a man’s head spin, to make him stagger around like a drunk. When the first Unseelie soldier dragged himself up the stairs, gripping the walls, all it took was one kick to his chest to send the entire troop tumbling backward down the stairwell.
The tree exhaled my breath. Still, I was starting to feel light-headed. When I stood, euphoria clouded my mind.
Steadying myself on the doorframe, I was relieved to see the hallway was still clear. Only a single woman moved in my direction now, a little slip of a thing. She looked pale, terrified. Dressed in a delicate white dress and a flower crown, she stepped gingerly over broken glass and sap, which glittered like garnets in the flaming rays of sun. The world was a bloody and beautiful place, nowhere more so than in the Court of Sorrows.
I stepped back into the stairwell and held my breath, waiting until she was inches from the doorway.
With a flick of my wrist, red-leafed vines curled around her neck and mouth, and I dragged her into the stairwell as she kicked and bucked. A dark survival instinct unfurled within me, and I tightened them a little more around her neck until her eyes closed and her body went limp. I had no idea if I had enough control to suffocate someone while keeping her alive. But when faced with my own death, I’d take the chance on a stranger’s. When her muscles went slack, I released the vines and looked down at her with a twinge of guilt.
She looked about forty, delicate of frame, with black hair and tattoos on her cheeks. She could be someone’s mom, I supposed. Her chest still rose and fell, soothing my nerves. That was one less thing to keep me up at night if I managed to get out of here. In the stairwell, I undressed, peeling off my filthy prisoner’s clothes. With a hammering heart, I pulled on her white dress, then adjusted the flower crown on my head to hide my copper horns. I shoved her unconscious body into the corner of the stairwell and made a half-hearted attempt to cover her with my clothes. I pulled her shoes off, too, and they nearly fit, just a size or two too large.
With my new disguise, I started toward the western end of the castle. Broken glass crunched beneath my stolen shoes. I moved west toward the light, hurrying toward the Tower of Dusk.
It was only a few feet away now—
Someone grabbed me by the hair, yanking me back.
“Here she is,” he snarled in my ear. “Queen Mab has been looking for you. She wants to throw you off the tower.”
Already, a blade was at my throat, pressing against my skin.
28
AVA
At the mention of Queen Mab, fury slid through me, a rage so hot it made my legs shake, a wrath sharp as thorns that would set me free.
I saw it in my mind as it happened. Behind me, a vine shot through the fae’s skull. His muscles went limp, and he slumped to the floor. I whirled to find two more Unseelie standing there, mouths agape. Hardly had the words formed in my mind, hardly did I dare to admit to myself the monster I could become. Flaming violence, hot as a forge, burned all rational thought out of me. My thorny vines carved through the two other fae, severing their heads from their bodies.
Blood spattered around me and on the new white dress.
My body shook.I am death.
The first fae I’d killed was unrecognizable, his face destroyed beneath long, silvery antlers. I pulled my gaze from the other two, trying to block out the screams of the soldiers trapped in branches outside.
Shaking, I turned to the stairwell.
What was I capable of?
Maybe the people here in the Court of Sorrows should have asked themselves that before they decided to find out. Maybe they should have considered that before they locked me in a prison and forced me to kill my lover. Maybe all this blood and the screams weretheirfault.
By the time I reached the upper levels of the tower, carnage danced in my thoughts. From the stairwell, the tower room glowed with fiery light.
I stepped through the archway into the Dusk Tower itself, and the light seemed to shift, darkening to periwinkle and violet, streaming through windows.
My breath caught at the sight of three enormous silvery wolves that sat protectively around the figure in the center of the room. A fire burned in a stone pit before her, illuminating the stooped woman and her wolves. A pewter-blue veil covered her face, and it hung down over the silver fabric of her dress. She sat still as stone. The only parts of her that were exposed were her pale, wrinkled hands and the enormous silver antlers that jutted from her head. I had the distinct impression that I was trespassing in a place I didn’t quite understand.
